Plastic Roof on the Chicken Coop Pen

I got a tarp up over the chicken pen because it is going to be raining for a few days and the chickens will have to stay penned. I also put five bags of leaves down in the pen for the chickens to scratch around.

I read somewhere that if you are going to use the deep litter method you should keep the litter dry. So, I'm going to give dry a try. I may need to get some more tarps for the sides of the pen. This storm is supposed to be windy so I'll be able to see how much rain gets blown in the pen. The pen is pretty well protected under the trees.

There is some little critter digging in the coop. Don't know what it is, but I found a pile of dirt on top of the plywood in a corner and I know the chickens didn't pile up the little dirt mountain there. I dug around the outside of the coop corner and put some rocks in the hole. There is already a metal barrier sunk down 18" and metal under the plywood. Maybe it's a mole?

My back is messed up again and I'm still not feeling positive... meaning feeling like doing anything except reading. I need to go make something for my dinner. I'd probably feel better if I ate. Grumble... I am not a happy camper. I think I need more blueberry pancakes.

I have an easy fun rainy day project in mind for tomorrow.

Hope I can move around and get it started.

 Peek at the Past

(October 22, 2010)

The chickens are in the middle of molting

this year too.

We haven't fired up the wood stove yet this year.

Maybe tomorrow?

[1 egg today]

There haven't been any eggs the last couple of days.

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Smiles

Digging Up The Chicken Pen

The chickens and Morgan were very interested in my efforts to dig up the chicken pen. I managed to dig up enough to put a layer on each of the planter beds, but didn't really clear much of the pen.

I am going to have to switch from building planter boxes to digging out the rest of the pen before it starts drying out. When the soil around here dries it is like cement and I would need a pick to make a dent.

For now a pitch fork is working well because of all the pine branches layered in the pen the shovel won't be of any use until I get the top layers off. It is going to take me a while to clear out the pen and coop and bring in a new layer of dirt.

Tomorrow I'm going to put together a quick compost area and move the rest of the pen chicken dirt there and let it compost. At least I hope I will be able to put together something with some old fencing I found.

This is only a fourth of the tree that fell on the chicken coop. There is another piece as long as this and just as much of the tree is still waiting to fall. The coop is a lot stronger than I thought because you can't tell that it was hit. 

I was careful and didn't work too hard. I would work for a bit and then go inside for a glass of apple juice and cool down and then go out and cover another bed. After I got them all covered I watered them down and put on a layer of dirt.

Kristine saw two coyotes running down the road on her way home. So, fair warning. I know the predators are out there, but they are easy to forget about until we see them or they make a visit. 

Peek at the Past

(May 14, 2009)

[9 eggs today]

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Smiles

Rainy Day Plans

The chickens have been locked up for a week and now because of the rain and the fox they will be penned until at least Thursday.

The photo shows the fenced area adjoining the chicken pen. Kristine and I would like to cut an opening in the anchor fence and build a secure doorway that would allow access between the pens.

Secure is the operative word. I'm not at all sure I will be able to build a secure enough door. I will need something that will stand up to raccoons and possibly bears. The fox and other predators would have to dig in, but the raccoons and bears could climb in (and have climbed in) the other pen because unlike the chicken pen it is not roofed with anchor fencing.

So, I need to roof the other pen with fencing or put on a solid roof to make the pen secure. We were originally thinking that if we put in a door then the chickens could use the other pen in the daytime and we could lock it up at night.

It all gets more complicated as I plan out the steps I need to take. I keep hoping I will come up with an idea that will simplify the process. It can't be too difficult because I am the one who will be doing the work.

I found this site when I was looking for tonics and enjoyed reading the recipes and stories.

Chicken update: The hen is eating, drinking and the wounds seem to be healing. Not closed yet.

Molasses update: I had two teaspoons of molasses yesterday. Two too many evidently because I couldn't sleep and had a migraine episode. I will wait a few days and then try a half teaspoon and see how that goes. The molasses does seem to pack a punch. Too much sugar? Or?

Peek at the Past

(March 29, 2009)

[6 eggs today]

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Smiles

Chicken Treats In The Snow

click on photos to enlarge

   I wouldn't want to walk around barefoot in the snow, but these little girls don't seem to mind. I tossed a bag of lettuce out in the pen for the chickens while I changed their water and gave them more feed.

   There is really not that much snow in the pen. A lot of the snow gets hung up in the trees or on the leaves that are caught in the anchor fencing over the top of the pen. Raccoons and bears can walk around up there but so far they haven't gotten past the wire. The leaves make a snow and sun screen.  I'll take them down when we get some sun and snow is history.  I shoot the leaves off with the hose.                                                                                                                            It snowed again last night, but as the photo shows there really isn't that much snow. There has been so much rain in between the snow storms that melted away the fallen snow that this is all that is left. Just enough snow to mess things up and make it so we couldn't get out because the main road is not plowed.

   We should be able to get out tomorrow because we are supposed to have rain not more snow. But, who knows?

   Morgan has decided she loves being out in the snow and sometimes won't come when we call her. I guess she is having too much fun running and playing looking for snow critters.

   Kristine made me watch an anime called Gintama (Silver Balls) episodes 151 and 152. Pretty funny! This is not really my kind of humor, but I can see why she laughs so much when she watches. I wonder if they have chicken anime?

   I had a great idea! Well, I thought it was. Kristine is not so sure...

I think it is such a waste to never look at past posts. Besides I like to see what I was up to last year.  Soooo, my plan is to put a link to the same day last year on each post... somewhere.  How about... Peek at the past? Gee. I was still drinking tea last year. Had to give that up.

[1 egg today]

Surprise!
Peek at the Past
(January 23, 2009)

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Smiles

Snow and Rain

click on photo to enlarge

  The chickens are staying inside the coop. An Australorp  ran out in the pen clucking away when she heard me walking in the snow bringing warm water, but then she turned around and ran right back inside. I can see a hen looking at me through the glass. Boo!   The weather is  pretty bad farther up the mountain where there is more snow, snowy fog and windy storm are making driving very dangerous. I'm staying away from the tv news about all the falling trees. We are getting lots of storm, rain and a some snow so far.

   Today I was going to take some photos of all the mushrooms that have sprung up, but the snow covered them up and I didn't look for them. Hard to know what is going to happen with the snow forecasts. We are due another big storm so we will probably get hit with snow. I hope Kristine and the other drivers will be safe on the roads and I hope the trees stay upright.
   The snow was being melted by a new rain storm when I went out with the warm water. I stopped and took a photo of my neat little drainage ditch that is diverting runoff water from the chicken coop and pen. It works!
   I miss reading blogs and posting. I know I wanted rain, but I didn't know we were due an El Nino.

[2 eggs today]

3 eggs yesterday

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Smiles

PS: I don't know why the top paragraph is black?

Muddy Chicken Pen Or Maybe Not?

Dark Brahma, Orpington, Curly the Cochin, Light Brahma, Dark Brahma, two Buff Brahmas, Orpington, Wyandotte, Light Brahma, Australorp

This afternoon a bunch of the hens congregated near the green house fence. I haven't seen this before. Maybe the afternoon sun warmed up this area and the girls had found a cozy place.

The KentuckyFarmGirl's question about the chicken pen got me thinking about what a slippery goopy muddy place the chicken pen can become and I decided to try and do something to head off the mess instead of dealing with the mud after the fact. This is the pen when I started. It is a little damp from the last storm but not muddy yet.

My way of dealing with the mud has been to cover it with leaves. In past years I have been putting down leaves after the pen was muddy, but it is a lot nicer to haul around dry leaves than wet ones. It is also a lot easier to walk around on dry ground. And this year I'm trying out wood chips, from where Tom cut up the wood, on one end of the pen. What usually happens is that the leaves sink down in the mud and I keep topping the pen off with new layers of leaves. I feel so sorry for the hens when they have to stay in the pen when the weather is bad and Morgan can't go outside. So, I'll see what happens with this experiment.

I wonder if the wood chips will work out better than the leaves? When the rains are over, I usually take out the leaves and put them in the garden and put down a new layer of dirt in the chicken pen. Sometimes I have just covered up the leaves with a layer of dirt.

I read about making a shallow ditch to divert water from the pen and decided to try that out. Morgan is wondering what I'm up to. The ground looks level in the photos, but it slopes toward the chicken coop. Hopefully, this little ditch will keep runoff water out of the pen. There have been times when Morgan has run around the pen and made a path that looked pretty much like this.

We got a little rain this evening and it is supposed to rain tomorrow. Good thing Kristine and I unplugged our computers, because there was lightning and the power went out for a few hours.

[no eggs today]

I hope the hens are saving them up for tomorrow.

Smiles

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Cleaning Up

The hens were busy cleaning up their pen when I went out to lock them up tonight. In fact, there were a few roosting, one in a nest, but the rest of the girls were all in the pen. Nobody was hanging around outside looking for the door. Maybe they like picking up their mess.

I spent some time trying to come up with some different ways to attach this board to the end of the counter. When the guys were putting on the countertop they didn't think of me having to cover up the boards they left hanging out (upper left corner.) Soooo, I'm going to have to put in some spacers. I thought about cutting the board back flush, but it is supporting the counter. Phooey! I got the little finish board up without splitting it. That was neat.

The board is going to be there, but I have to put some more spacers in, so I have some where to anchor the front piece. Now I need to find a board for the front. And cut some trim boards to cover the holes. The main thing is to just keep working at it everyday, and one day I will be done. I know I'll be surprised. There used to be a built in oven and cupboard here, but now we have the cooktop in the island the new oven is built in over there too. Tom built the oven's home and is going to get it checked over by an electrician before I can use it. Soon.

Poor Morgan is all tuckered out tonight. I found her behind my sewing machine table. After her dinner she likes to find a quiet place to lay down and think about her day. Or think about tomorrow? Or sweet friendly chickens? Or no chickens?

[5 eggs today]

Smiles

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Ahh... Come On Out!

Morgan doesn't understand that if she stands in the doorway and waits for the chickens to come out that the hens are not coming. The chickens are not afraid of Morgan, but there are only a few of them who will approach Morgan in the doorway and pass her. Morgan must look like an obstacle to the girls or Morgan is to be avoided?

So, just to confuse things some more, I called Morgan into the pen. The hens are still not all that excited about leaving. What gives? Poor Morgan. No. Don't go in the pen. Yes. Go in the pen. How can I expect Morgan to know the rules if I break them.

This old thing was laying all over the place with nails sticking up, so maybe Morgan got hurt on this little disaster. I picked up the pieces and leaned it back together. I need to get some nails and some wood and stick it back together. My brother built this little dog house and used it to cover the faucets. Works great. It keeps the faucets hidden and relatively clean except for spider webs. The real pay off is that it protects the faucets from the wind and cold during a freeze and keeps the pipes from freezing.

On the way back to the house after locking up the chickens tonight I took this picture of the opening in the trees over our house. My view of the sky is kinda limited unless I get to the side of a mountain. Kinda pretty blue and pink skyset?

[8 eggs today]

The Hen Cam lady on her blog here

said that her hens are molting and have stopped laying.

So, I guess I can expect that to start happening

around here pretty soon.

She also has a new Goat Cam.

I think it would be neat to put a cam on a hen and let it record as she went through her day in the coop and in the woods. I don't think the hen would be thrilled to wear a cam. I wonder how heavy they are? The Hen Cams look a bit too large for a chicken to wear. Maybe a goat?

Smiles

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The Painting Continues

Morgan slept all day and she feels much better this evening. I can tell because she is walking on the foot and she is wagging her tail around in circles. She is being very good and has not bothered the bandage. I hate putting the collar on her, so I hope she continues to leave it alone. I am used to having her outside all day and since I was painting and busy; I forgot about her and didn't take her out. Poor Morgan. She was so quiet all day that I didn't notice her.

Well, that looks a bit better than yesterday. Tom already had a new green tarp. It is a little smaller than the ratty blue one I had one there yesterday, but it works! I gave the hens lettuce and veggies for a treat this morning.

The basket on the left was blue

and the one on the right was a dirty off white.

As long as I was painting I decided to paint them too.

I'm painting woodwork and doors today.

This was overkill. I was used to the killer oven cleaners of the past and so put my burner racks outside and sprayed them and left them for two hours. Gee, I should have read the directions. Next time I will do this in the sink. Much less trouble. The cleaner didn't smell bad and it worked fairly well. I only had to scrap off a few spots. Next time I will leave it on longer.

[8 eggs today]

Smiles

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Chicken Pen

This is a photo of the chicken pen

before I hauled in a bunch of wheelbarrows of dirt.

And here is a shot of the pen after I raked it flat. The pen will be much easier to rake clean without the holes the chickens dug. I expect the hens will have a lot of fun digging new dusting spots. Tom put the gate back up for me. I can get it off the pins, but I can't get it hooked again.

We didn't get any rain and the thunder storms passed over headed up the mountains. It was cool enough today to spend some time shoveling and hauling dirt. The hens like their new dirt pen. I'll post a video tomorrow.

[9 eggs today]

Smiles

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Dorsal

This is a photo of the left side of the chicken coop. This is how the chicken side looked before I added the white metal door. I took off the metal panels, added some more 2x4's to make a door and window frame, hung the door and window and used some left over siding to make up the wall. I planted grass seed in the left pen last year and it was so pretty and green, but that only lasted a few days before the chickens tore it all up. I sometimes think about spreading grass seed around the place after the rains start, but then I would have to worry about more fire hazard. The leaves are bad enough. It is terribly dry in the woods. Not pleasant at all.

The temperature only got into the high eighties today, so there was no shooting down of cobwebs. Instead I walked around in the woods with the chickens to see if they did anything different in the hot weather.

Maybe they hide in the shade when it is in the hundreds, but today they did the regular chickens stuff: dusting, scratching, running around and sitting in the nest boxes. I was out under the trees behind the chicken pen when I heard a chicken sounding off. At first I thought it was Hen/Roo, but Kristine says it is Dorsal. Yep. It is Dorsal. The comb is small and the tail sticks up. Kristine named her that because her tail sticks up like a dorsal fin on a fish. I thought Dorsal was trying to crow, but Kristine says that is the sound the hens make after they lay an egg. I am so bad at chicken language. So where is the egg? Maybe she is the dirt layer?

[5 eggs today]

5 minus 1 in the dirt

Smiles

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Chicken Pen

Here is a close up of the small hole chicken wire I have about one third up the sides of the pen to keep the raccoons from reaching in and grabbing a chicken. The Old Gray Egg here asked if the chicken hoof racket on the porch chased the raccoons away? Funny you should ask. We did have a colony of raccoons living under the house when we moved up here. My brother fed them dog food so they were very happy to live here. I must admit they were cute. Mommas, Pop, and all the little ones on the porch in the evening clamoring at the slider for their evening chow. But, we didn't want to deal with the raccoons and our dogs at the time surely didn't want them around. So, once the free food was cut off and our dogs made their displeasure known the raccoons took off for a friendlier place to live. I don't remember that the raccoons bothered my brothers chickens. Maybe they were too full of dog food to make the effort? Or. Maybe this coop and pen are that secure that they couldn't figure out how to get in. A few years ago I do remember a chicken going under the house and never showing up again. Maybe there are some raccoons still living under the house?

I managed to get a shot of Henny Penny with her new duct tape saddle. I never realized how much smaller she is or how much bigger the other chickens are.

I found some neat chicken coop links to share here and here.

The beer can roof on the outhouse coop is so neat

and I love the nest boxes in the second.

Here is a very short video of the chicken pen/coop. It has been very hot here lately and everything has dried out. I am not a hot weather person and like the wet winter weather much more that the summer we have here. There are only three months that are really bad as far as heat goes, but still it is way too dry to make me happy. The cobwebs don't look too nice, but they are a very good thing to have around the chickens to catch all kinds of crawly and flying insects. Once a year, after the temp goes into the hundreds, I will hose down the coop and pen, inside and out. It all dries quickly when it is so hot. And the pen is is the sun part of the day, so it doesn't take long at all to dry out.

[7 eggs today]

No eggs in the dirt!

Smiles

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